Thursday, 28 March 2019

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) sent a letter to fellow Democrats Monday asking them to sign a resolution calling on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether President Trump has committed any impeachable offenses — a possibility Tlaib believes was not adequately explored by special counsel Robert Mueller.Tlaib, who famously vowed to “impeach the mother***er” in her election night speech, broke with Democratic leadership in calling for an inquiry specifically aimed at determining whether Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”“The actions of President Trump before he was officially sworn in as President of United States is currently being investigated by the Southern District of New York and much of it is part of the completed report by independent investigator, Robert Mueller,” Tlaib wrote in a letter obtained by Business Insider. “However, the most dangerous threat to our democracy is President Trump's actions since taking the oath of office.”Tlaib went on to argue that the multiple ongoing Congressional investigations probing Trump's personal financial history, his family business operations, his administration's granting of security clearances, are insufficient, and an additional impeachment-focused probe is needed.“Much of the allegations have yet to be fully investigated by this body who also took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution,” Tlaib wrote. “It is critical that we protect the American people and our country from any conflicts of interests that directly erodes our democracy.”“I, firmly, believe that the House Committee on Judiciary should seek out whether President Trump has committed 'High crimes and Misdemeanors' as designated by the U.S. Constitution and if the facts support those findings, that Congress begin impeachment proceedings,” she added.Tlaib lays out three areas of inquiry that she would like Judiciary committee chairman Jerry Nadler to explore: whether Trump's ongoing ties to his family businesses, which regularly cater to foreign dignitaries, violates the foreign emoluments clause; whether Trump's hush money payment reimbursements to Michael Cohen violate federal election law; and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI director James Comey.Attorney General William Barr, in a summary of the Mueller report he delivered to Congress Sunday, wrote that Mueller did not make a determination on whether Trump obstructed justice, but Barr, and his deputy Rod Rosenstein, determined there was not sufficient evidence to bring that charge.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dismissed the possibility of impeachment as an unnecessarily divisive move that would ultimately prove counter-productive for Democrats in 2020."Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country," she told the Washington Post Magazine in a recent interview.